I was able to enjoy another day on the slopes this past Saturday.  My friends (Rob and Ken) and I headed up early in the morning and decided to visit Keystone.  Even though we were on the road between 6:15 and 6:30, traffic was pretty bad.  So we opted for a close resort and made it to Keystone just after the lifts started turning at 8:30.  We all headed straight to the Outback and enjoyed some turns on the fresh powder, including a couple of hikes to the bowls for Rob and I.  The line quickly grew on the Outback lift, so we headed back toward the front of the resort and spent some time in the Windows, where we found even more powder stashes. It was a good day and I’m glad I was able to sneak out of the house for a few hours.

I forgot to bring my Garmin watch along.  However, Vail resorts has created this cool website this year that helps you track your vertical feet per day along with a season total.  Along with all of this, they have created pins that you can unlock by riding certain lifts or attending certain events, which adds some fun to the whole thing.  According to the EpicMix website I rode 17,526 vertical feet on Saturday. However I need to add to that some as we hiked four different times before starting our descents.  EpicMix just has sensors at the bottom of each lift, so all it knows is what lifts you rode that day, and uses that information to make other calculations.

This week in sports was particularly good for me, and also for the Cincinnati Bearcat basketball team.  The Cats won on the road at Georgetown (#11) Wednesday night, which should help propel them into the March Madness tournament.  They have another game on Sunday against UConn that I hope to watch on ESPN3.  Speaking of UC, this years football schedule was released earlier today!

My hockey team also had a big win on Wednesday night, 4-2 over the Predators.  I scored the first goal of the game and overall played pretty well.  Only two game remain before a tournament of our own.  I hope we keep our momentum going strong.

Finally, last night at bowling was one of my best nights ever.  I started off with a 143, which I thought might have been my high score of this season, but I quickly trumped that with a 160 in the second game.  I topped it off with a 142, and my average should definitely go up from 126.  My team is in third place, which sounds good at first, but you have to remember there are only four teams this time around.  I think we will stay in third after last night even though we won 2 of the 3 games.

Space shuttle Discovery launched about an hour ago on its final mission before retirement.  The shuttle is now on its way to the International Space Station and once complete there will only be two more shuttle missions before the entire fleet is retired.  In addition to the six member crew, this shuttle is carrying the first humanoid robot in space, Robonaut2, along with various pieces for the Space Station.  It is always cool to watch these launches, and now only two remain, scheduled for April 19 and June 28.

My mother in law is in town visiting for the week.  Last night she took us out to dinner and I got to choose our destination.  I decided to pick someplace that I had never been to before, Steuben’s.  In the years that we have lived in Denver I have heard many great things about Steuben’s, but somehow we had never checked it out for our own.  We arrived to find the restaurant fairly crowded, much more than I thought it would be on a Tuesday night.  We were told the wait would be about a half hour.  Perhaps it’s all the recent exposure on Food Network (Diners, Drive-ins and Dives) that is bringing the large crowds, or maybe it is always this popular.

We all started with cocktails from their lengthy list.  I chose the house favorite, Moscow Mule, with Sobieski Vodka, fresh squeezed lime, and ginger beer, served in a copper mug.  My wife went with Steuben’s Rock & Rye (Wild Turkey 101 rye infused with orange zest, lemon zest, clove, cassia bark, horehound and rock candy) while her mother decided on the Ward Eight (Buffalo Trace bourbon, orange and lemon juice, and grenadine).  All of the drinks were tasty, though the Ward Eight was a little strong for my companions’ tastes.  I especially liked the Moscow Mule and would definitely order one again.

Moscow Mule in Copper Mug

I considered convincing the group to start with gravy fries, after reading good reviews of them, but instead we went from something completely different with the Habanero honey fried corn.  Upon ordering I was picturing that somehow they were breading corn, frying it, and serving it with a dipping sauce.  However, when the dish arrived I realized I was completely wrong.  The plate had four pieces of corn on the cob, which had apparently been deep-fried.  It was also covered in cheese (possibly feta) and served with lime slices dusted with spicy seasoning and a honey butter.  Despite it being much different from what I had expected, it was actually really good, especially when hit with all the flavors of the accompaniments.

Habanero honey fried corn

For entrees I decided again to order the house favorite, fried chicken served with mashed potatoes, biscuit, and gravy.  My wife decided to order the Cubano sandwich with a side of crispy brussels sprouts after reading reviews of this sandwich.  And my mother in law went with the maine lobster roll & fries, which was one of the featured dishes on the previously mentioned TV show.  The fried chicken plate was massive, consisting of one piece each of breast, thigh, leg, and wing.  Each piece was very delicious and different from the next.  The mashed potatoes were also good, as was the gravy, but the real standout was the biscuit.  It had a hint of sweetness to it that really balanced out the meal.

Fried Chicken Plate

Both my wife and her mother really enjoyed their meals as well.  I did not sample any of the lobster roll, so I’ll have to let the picture do it justice.  I did have a little bit of the Cubano sandwich, which was served on a wonderful bread with a side of a really tasty sauce.  I’m not sure what the sauce was, but it was a nice addition to the ham, pork, and cheese sandwich.  The crispy brussels sprouts were disappointing, as they tasted little more than fried flakes, and perhaps were overdone.  The accompanying sauce was good, but really hid the flavor of the vegetable.  I did also manage to sneak a couple of fries from my mother in law, and I could understand how the gravy fries could be so popular, as I tried to scoop any remaining gravy from my plate onto the fries.  It was a great meal and I hope we return soon.

Maine lobster roll & fries

Cubano Sandwich

Crispy brussels sprouts

Last year the Dave Matthews Band announced that they would not be touring this summer.  For the first time in many years, I would not be able to experience this summer concert staple.  However earlier this year the band announced that they would be playing four multi-day, multi-artist music events that will take place this summer.  Today some of the dates were officially announced:

Dave Matthews Band will host four three-day music festivals across the US this summer. The multi-stage events will feature a wide array of diverse musical talent with Dave Matthews Band performing a headlining set each night. Exact locations, lineups, ticketing and lodging info will be announced soon.

JUNE 24-26…North East/Mid Atlantic

JULY 8-10…Midwest

AUGUST…coming soon!

SEPTEMBER…coming soon!

Everything I’ve read has indicated that the Midwest dates are going to be held in Chicago.  Also rumored is that O.A.R. will be a part of this Chicago festival.  I’m definitely going to have to make that happen!

After taking nearly two months off from snowboarding, I made it back out on the slopes yesterday.  It has been hard for me to leave the house on the weekends if Trey isn’t coming with me.  But I finally decided that I had to put that aside if I was going to spend any more days on the slopes.  Fortunately if I get up early enough and get out on the mountain right away, I can typically be back in the early to mid-afternoon, so the whole day is not lost.

Anyway, I headed up to Arapahoe Basin with my friends Ken and Rob, two guys that I have spent nearly all prior days of this season with.  We decided to try A-Basin since it was a holiday weekend, and we hoped it would be the least crowded of the resorts on our passes.  This seemed to work in our favor as we never encountered more than a five-minute wait in lift lines.  We were able to get our ten runs in for the day by 12:30, including a couple of runs on the East Wall. This allowed me to be back at home by 2 so I could hang with Trey for the rest of the day.

For the second time this season, I took the Garmin Forerunner 305 on the slopes with me.  The first time I had mixed results, mostly due to inadvertent pressing of the stop button.  I had much more luck yesterday after placing the watch on top of as many as my layers as possible.  This way I could watch it closer and I was able to reduce the accidental button pressing to only one occurence.  If I am even more careful in the future, I will be able to graph out my tracks even better.  Either way, yesterdays adventures can be seen below.

My hockey team had another thrilling overtime win this week.  We were playing against a team that is close in the standings, so this was a must win.  We dominated much of the game after having a slow start both in net and on offense.  The game eventually reached the end of regulation at a tie.  From there it was on to a shootout, best of three for each team.  However, the contest had to go much farther than three skaters from each side.  Our team actually went all the way through our roster before the guy who took our first shot managed to sneak in a goal on his second try.  This ended the game for a big victory.

I had another pretty good week at bowling too.  My average starting the night was 127, which I topped in the first two games with scores of 133 and 137.  The final game was a little distracting after a neighboring league complained about some of the members in our league not following proper etiquette.  None of us will bowl at the same time as a neighboring lane, but apparently this league doesn’t want you to even grab your ball if they are in the process of bowling.  That seems a bit excessive, and it didn’t appear that they have any fun in their league.  Anyway I ended the night with a 108.  I think my average should stay right around 127, which I am more than happy with.  On the flip side, my team is in last place and may remain there this week.  Contrary to what I wrote last week, we didn’t win any games since we had two substitutes bowling and the scores reported during play were not accurate.  Bummer!

I received this email today from an executive at work:

I am pleased to inform you that you are a recipient of an Engineering Award from Harris Corporation for your work on the Virtualized FAME Enterprise Solution for the NGA for Deployment in the NEA Architecture Project. 

This award is quite prestigious within Harris – you were personally nominated within BCD; this nomination was ratified by the Cross Divisional Selection Committee; and then approved by BCD President Harris Morris and Harris Corporation Chairman, CEO and President Howard Lance.

We take great pride at Harris in the strength of our Engineers and Scientists and believe this creates differentiation and high value for the company.

Thank you for your contribution, and congratulations!

I’m not sure if there is an actual award or just a certificate that I can add to my collection.  Either way I’m pretty pumped!

A couple of years ago I mentioned a photo blog on boston.com called The Big Picture.  And thought that site continues on, the primary contributor, Alan Taylor, recently left there to join The Atlantic’s newly created In Focus.  The idea of both sites is the same, but they are often covering different events.  I’m still following The Big Picture, but find that Alan’s work with In Focus usually is more exciting along with latest photos.  In other words, things that I see on In Focus often later show up on The Big Picture.  Either way, both are worth visiting a few times of week when they are updated.

My parents bought us a Garmin Forerunner 305 for Christmas this year.  I haven’t had too many opportunities to start using it yet, but I did finally get the heart rate monitor working for a run this afternoon.  The temperature was peaking in the upper 50’s so I headed outside for a nice four mile loop.  Once I made it back to my desk, I downloaded the data to my computer.  Below is a nice chart that graphs my speed and heart rate versus the grade percentage.

You can easily see how the heart rate line (red) quickly climbs toward 150 bpm and then hovers around the 170 bpm range between miles one through four. You can also see how my speed (blue) started off quick, averaging 7 mph for the first mile and half, and then falling down closer to 6 mph for the rest of the run. I stopped running after 4 miles since I was really feeling it and I was facing a rather large hill. This route appears to have much more elevation changes toward the end (yellow) so maybe it would be better to run it in reverse. I may try doing that as I hope to keep running at lunch a couple of times a week. And I really look forward to seeing what else the Forerunner can do and hopefully watch my times go down and my speeds go up.